Wow, it's been almost 6 months since the last major news posting, and not much has been happening other than the announcement of one festival date coming up this May. Hopefully that gives way to maybe some new news or additional tour dates.

In the meantime, three interviews have surfaced in the last week with Isaac, Jeremiah, and Davey. All three don't really concern anything new, but are worth a listen.

Isaac talks about skateboarding and the song Shit Luck having been used in so many skate videos, as well as touching on the music industry and how canceling tours is expensive.

Jeremiah and Davey are both interviewed by the The Trap Set, the interviews were both recorded before their show at The Forum last year in California. Their interviews touch more on their early careers. Jeremiah also touches on some of the topics he spoke about during his Shit Show interview from 2015, and Davey talks about how he got the job with Modest Mouse after Joe left.

Listen to the Isaac interview below. The interviews with Jeremiah and Davey can be found here and here respectively.

Back in late February, someone at BuzzFeed mentioned that they were 9 hours in to a 12 hour interview with Isaac Brock.

The interview has finally been published, and true to their word, it is really really long. Titled "Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock Wants To Be More Than A Myth", Jonathan Valania's interview covers many of the things we've heard in a lot of other interviewslately, but does a good job in going into a lot more detail.

Some features include more of the meaning behind Mexico/"Ansel" is explained, and Isaac talks about how he wants to make a music video on the edge of the Tillamook State Forest staring Crispin Glover for "Pistol". There's also mention of the follow up album to Strangers to Ourselves coming out in mid 2017 (wasn't it 2016 the other day...).

Valania also managed to get an interview with Isaac's mother Kris Adair, and she helps dispel what she feels are the four biggest myths about Isaac's upbringing: The White Panthers, the hippie commune, the Branch Davidians, and the shed where Modest Mouse began (includes a photo).

Both Isaac and Jeremiah have been interviewed by Relix Magazine. The article, posted earlier today, touches on a few subjects such as the album delay, the amount of work that went into it, and the chemistry that still remains between the two.

They both also embellish on information that has come out recently on how the recording process was stopped and restarted numerous times. Isaac also talks about Ice Cream Party Studios, the studio they built in 2012. Both mention that the band amassed around 35-37 songs during these sessions, with Jeremiah adding "...I promise our next record will come out sooner. We have a bunch of songs and we'll probably rework them. They are good-they're just not finished. We might put out something really strange next."

Isaac also talks about Eric, and says that there was no drama involved in him leaving, just adulthood.

"He finally had enough," Brock says. "He has three kids. He didn't feel like leaving his house as much as is required. He left right before we started recording, but some of his writing still exists throughout the record. Making a record without him was really fucking hard."

It's an interesting read, with many more points that I've not touched on, find the link to the full article below.

The bad news is, for unexplained reasons, the release date has been pushed back two weeks to March 17. This new release date will coincide with the band performing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

The first thing to note here, unless it's been retitled, is that Poison The Well appears to be the only song performed live from the past few years that does not appear to be on the album. This track however has not been performed since late 2012 though.

Pistol also appears to have a new title that seems to reference American spree killer Andrew Cunanan. However it's been pointed out that he died in 1997, not 1996, so that may be a typo.

The fan titled track Give It Enough may still be on the album, but under its official title. Time will tell.

Lastly, the press release also details a lot of the people that worked on the album, revealing that James Mercer is once again returning to perform back up vocals. On which tracks it's not made clear. Dann Gallucci is also making a return appearance. As is Ben Massaralla (who performed some percussion on The Moon And Antarctica), which was previously touched on back in 2013. The production team is also revealed to be Isaac Brock, Andrew Weiss, Tucker Martine, Clay Jones, and Brian Deck.

The 15 new, original songs of Strangers To Ourselves were recorded at Ice Cream Party in Portland, Oregon a recording studio owned and operated by Isaac Brock. Originally leased in mid 2012 and purchased in late 2012, Ice Cream Party began as a makeshift studio, with mattresses against the walls to insulate sound, and was slowly transformed into a professional workspace where the band finished mixing the album in early 2015. Strangers To Ourselves was produced by Isaac Brock with additional production by Andrew Weiss, Tucker Martine, Clay Jones, and Brian Deck. The album features founding drummer Jeremiah Green, and a wide cast of musical collaborators, including James Mercer, who returns to sing back-up vocals throughout the album, Tom Peloso, Jim Fairchild (Grandaddy), Dann Gallucci (The Cold War Kids), Russell Higbee (formerly of Man Man), Ben Massaralla (Red Red Meat), Lisa Molinaro (Talkdemonic), Davey Brozowski (The Catheters), and more.

Jeremiah Green has given an extensive interview to podcaster Jaybo and his podcast The Shit show. Released 3 days ago, on January 27th (but recorded earlier this month), Jeremiah touches on a range of topics reaching back to the early days of the band, some personal details, the new album, and other questions that plagued the fan community over the past few years.

The interview is just under 50 minutes long, and is well worth the listen, but for those of you that don't have the time and just want the facts, here are the main things that he spoke about:

How he met Isaac Brock and Eric Judy through Sam Jayne (Lync, Love as Laughter), how they were to all start a band together, but Eric's car broke down.

How Johnny Marr joined the group, Isaac just called him up, and that his decision was largely influenced by his son being a fan of Modest Mouse. Johnny also left because during 5 months of downtime, he got restless and recorded an album with The Cribs, and then their tours conflicted. Jeremiah hopes they get to work again though.

Eric left the band to spend more time with his children, specifically to not miss watching his daughter grow up, and that while Jeremiah says it was incredibly hard for them all, they support him. Also that the door is open for him to come back, but it would not be right away, as that wouldn't be fair to Russell Higbee.

Eric left a week before the 2011 Australian tour, and that the band therefore could only play about 15 songs that tour.

They interviewed a lot of bassists before settling on Russell, and that this was a factor on the album delay. Eric was there for the writing of a lot of the songs, but the recording ended up being drawn out.

In the end Russell, Tom Peloso and Lisa Molinaro all contribute bass parts to the album, and that Jeremiah is responsible for all drumming on the album.

The Big Boi and Krist Novoselic tracks are not on the album, that there are a lot of b-sides, and that they may be released later, but the details are secret.

The band went through about 4 producers while recording this album, including Big Boi, and that this was also a factor in the huge delay. A lot of songs were re-recorded up to 3 times.

He is unsure exactly how much touring, if any other than the known dates, will be done to support the new album, but he makes it pretty clear that he's not the best person to be asking.

Listen to the complete podcast below.

Lastly, Track 14, which we reported on yesterday, has had it's title revealed through iTunes/Amazon updates as The Best Room. So hopefully we will be hearing this new track next week.

They were also both members of the 2002 lineup of Ugly Casanova. Both can be heard on their debut album Sharpen Your Teeth, which Deck also produced.

In a long sit down with New York publication The AWL, Tim Rutili talks about the history of his current band Califone. But he also briefly touches on his former bandmate Brian Deck and his past and current work with Modest Mouse, as well as the time Isaac had his jaw broken.

One of my favorite records of all-time, Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antarctica was made there with Brian Deck. Were you around when Isaac Brock got his jaw broken?

I didn't witness it, but I went to the hospital the next day and hung with him and got him out of there. From what I remember, we told him not to go into that park after 10 p.m. because there were kids who hung out there who were just dicks. And they went to the Empty Bottle one night, and when they came back, two of the guys went into the studio and Isaac went to the corner to talk to the kids. I think they said, "You're not from around here." And as Isaac answered, some kid just teed off on his face and shattered his jaw.

That slowed down the recording process for a while?

The band were around Chicago for a long time. And they had gotten a lot of the record done, but from what I remember, that incident was right before he was supposed to start recording vocals. And his jaw was wired shut. So things slowed down. I believe there were a lot more instrumental overdubs and other work done, while he healed up.

Maybe in a roundabout way that helped make it a better record?

I believe it helped the record immensely! I think Isaac worked a lot more on his lyrics, too... to me, it's the best Modest Mouse record.

I agree. It really feels like a weird cousin to what you do.

Brian did a really great job with those guys. They're making a new record now in Portland, and I know Benny went up there and recorded a bunch with them, and Brian has been there for months on this one and I think they're almost done. I stopped there and listened to some stuff last spring and it sounded great.

The story is one a lot of Modest Mouse fans will have heard before, but the most interesting part is definitely the last paragraph, where he talks about how Deck is currently working with the band on the new album.

This was hinted at by Jeremiah back in 2009, when he mentioned to a fan after a show in Anaheim, that the band was hoping to have Brian Deck produce the new album.

We'll presume as well, that this "Benny" is Califone's Ben Massarella, who also provided some percussion during the recording of The Moon & Antarctica.

Thanks to Board member bneiluj for posting this article. Take a listen below to a legendary Modest Mouse jam that was more than likely inspired by this story.

The 45 minute film, spends a brief time detailing the bands earlier years before the release of their second album, and then spends the rest focusing on some core songs off the album. Along with stories from the band members themselves, there are also tales from Dann Gallucci, Calvin Johnson, Phil Ek and Pat Graham.

Most of the footage is taken from the original "Untitled" documentary, interspersed with a lot of Pat's photography.

It's a nice walk down memory lane, looking back at an album that is now 15 years old. Hearing tales about songs, and their live and recording history.

Without trying to sound like an ungrateful fan stamping his feet and asking where that new album is (which seems to the common occurrence every time Modest Mouse makes a post on Facebook), we would like to point out that this is the longest gap so far between albums. If you don't take No One's First, And You're Next, as it's an EP and featured mostly old material.

With We Were Dead reaching this milestone, we thought we'd take this moment to recap and speculate on some of the recent activities of the band and its members, in the hopes of stirring up some discussion or perhaps someone filling us in on some news we're not aware of:

The band as a whole: After performing a mammoth 119 known shows in 2007, the performances cut to about a half of that for 2008, 2009 and 2010, before performing only 15 shows last year. This year doesn't seem to be off to anything different, with the only dates having past and set for the future being festivals.

One could be optimistic and see this as them spending more time in the studio working, or maybe they're just taking a break. I'm all for not rushing things. However with so little new material having been debuted live, I would think it's closer to the latter.

While the band has been notoriously shy from giving interviews in the past few years, when they have strangely there has been mention of a new album being practically finished, only to have the same story repeated a year later. A lot has happened since, Johnny Marr did leave the band, and who knows how that may have affected any of the material that he may have contributed to.

Even the sessions with Big Boi occurred almost one year ago, although it seems to have been made out that that was more of an experiment than anything.

So far the only new material floating around are the songs that have been performed live. The two that have had the most oration being Lampshades On Fire and Poison The Well. Another potential song is the untitled track performed at The Warfield, unofficially titled "Mexico". Lastly there is the untitled track that made an appearance at the end of the Don't Move Here episode.

Isaac Brock: Recently, apart from playing the few last minute surprise solo shows, the only other project Isaac potentially has on the go is the writing of the Queens Of Country soundtrack. Which was also announced about a year ago, and has since not been mentioned again. The film is finally due out at the end of this month, and while Isaac is still mentioned as the composer on IMDB, the lack of updates around this make me think he's no longer involved. We attempted to contact the producers of the film, but did not receive a reply. Hopefully with the release just around the corner, we should get some closure to this soon.

Jeremiah Green: The once side project busy Jeremiah, has also been quiet of late. At least perhaps quiet to news sources. After multiple World Gang releases early last year, this work seems to have slowed down since releasing that live album last June.

Eric Judy: Eric hasn't performed with the band live since 2011/07/02. Not that the band has performed that much since then. Rumours are rife that he has left the band. Personally I don't believe it, Eric does have young children, and could be taking a break from touring. We have tried to contact the band and certain members about his status, but haven't heard anything.

Jim Fairchild: Jim will be returning to perform some dates with the reunited Grandaddy. A question to maybe ask is, depending on the outcome there, will he perhaps not return should they decide to take things further?

Joe Plummer: A lot of updates lately have been revolving around Joe, now that he is with The Shins. They have a new album out as of today (coincidence?), and he will be touring full time with them. As with Jim, a question to ask, is does this mean Joe is perhaps done with his time in Modest Mouse, or when his work with The Shins calms down, will he be returning?

Pat Graham: Lastly, Pat Graham is still awesome, and we miss him and his updates on the band.

As for a little history on the track, Kevin Moyer was able to share the following:

Isaac and I share a distant friendship. He is very smart, crazy, fun, hilarious, and can tell a story like no other. I think the fact that our group of friends don't overlap too much means we can often have confiding conversations with no outside concern. I can also tell that we both understand the darkness.
When we first talked about the effort and him contributing, he wanted to do a cover song and for the life of me I cannot remember what it was, just that I wanted to record him doing it under a bridge or in a park near his house at night. But he got busy with doing the album "No One Is First and You're Next", so we started looking at old tracks already in the can to include instead.

Around that time I came upon some old tapes of Isaac as a 14 year old young kid playing music with friends in a shed using an old answering machine to record, and spent a considerable amount of time trying to clean those up, but Isaac did not want to use those as he felt it was "strip mining his past" and I had to agree. And just FYI on those tapes - Uncle Bunny Faces and Tube Fruit - he was just a teenager, only fourteen on some them, and he dumpster dived every tape that these were recorded onto from the MUZAK dumpsters in Seattle. Isaac tells me that these were never intended as demos, the term "demo" implies that you made the recordings to get people to become interested for a REAL record - and these were the REAL records. Isaac only gave them to close friends at the time and I can tell that he has a hard time hearing that these were for ever put up for sale by anyone. Again, with the strip mining his past.

Anyways, we decided to figure something else out and our schedules were having trouble aligning. Finally, one stormy night I was supposed to meet Isaac and his girlfriend at his house, but he wasn't there so I sat and waited on the porch for a few watching the trees bend in the storm. When the rain seemed to settle a bit I got in my car and left, only to get a text message from him on my way home saying to come back. I vividly remember the rain smearing down the windshield and the blurring green and reds of the traffic lights in the night as I turned the car around and almost got T boned by a semi truck running a red light doing about 60MPH. Finally though, I was back at Isaacs in the warmth of his house, sitting around a table drinking wine and listening to music.

The track that we finally chose is called "Dead End Job At The Dead Letter Office" and was recorded back in 1993 at Pat Maley's Yoyo Studios in Olympia, WA. This track is almost as old as the band and there is no recollection as to what this was recorded for particularly, other than just for the sake of recording music. The song features Isaac Brock on vocals and guitar, Dann Gallucci on guitar, and Jeremiah Green on drums. At the time, Isaac was sleeping in the hallway of a house with about 13 other people living in it; as was Dan, who was living in someone's closet.

By the way, Isaac was one of the first people to offer to release the "Live From Nowhere Near You" album. He had been doing A&R for sub pop and later started his own label called Glacial Pace. As far as I was concerned, with that kind gesture from him, he always had first dibs on releasing the project. But, remember, this effort took eight years to finish and he was busy with his own stuff and it kinda got to the point where I didn't want Isaac to think that the only reason I was talking with him was because I wanted something from him, so I kind of let that go. But it was always his, and the appreciation will always be there because it came at a point where I really needed someone to believe in the project and me... so it's not a stretch to say that he still had a very big part in the music on this release finally making it out of my studio and into the public ear.

Kevin was unfortunatly not able to disclose any more about which tracks were considered for the compilation, but for the most part it seems that the majority of what was, already exists in the fan community now (albeit sadly with made-up fan titles). As was with Every Mom I Know Seems To Think Its 'bout Them But It Ain't and the Babble On compilation that came to light earlier this year, this adds a few more details to the band's early history that is sadly so poorly documented.

Hear a new higher quality version of Dead End Job At The Dead Letter Office over at Antiquiet. Live From Nowhere Near You is available now for pre-order from Greyday Records (Canadians should have no problems now with shipping costs, as the postal strike is over).

Seattle design and production company, Süperfad, team up with director Nando Costa (The Whale Song video) and World Gang to release the short film Tactile Waveforms.

Süperfad's latest short film, directed by Nando Costa, explores the connections between science, mathematics and music. Drawings representing a musical score are released into stylized landscapes that illustrate conditions through which sounds travel. These drawn representations react in different ways when traveling through the desolate landscapes, transforming into impossible musical instruments and altering elements in the environment along the way. The film's structure is defined by World Gang's music composition, which features classic instruments altered electronically to create the track. Working in a push and pull relationship, the film's video and audio abstractions unite in an experience that is both otherworldly and rooted in tradition.

Isaac Brock's house (and Glacial Pace headquarters) are featured in Season II, Episode 5 of "Don't Move Here".

Isaac gives a tour of his home/studio, discusses his love of taxidermy, some home renovation tips, the bands that he's signing to Glacial Pace, and how the label came to be.

The episode ends with a short, partial performance from Modest Mouse, that features an as of yet, unreleased song. No mention though if this song is old or a new one being worked on for an upcoming album. Hopefully more will be cleared up when the band starts their short tour next month, should this song make its way onto set lists.

With Promise 1 (formally known as Promise The Mixtape) from World Gang coming
out this coming out next week, imputor? Records has now announced a live album
for the Jeremiah Green side project with Darrin Weiner due out May 3.

Jeremiah Green and Darrin Wiener
have donated an unreleased track, entitled (8)copy, to a compilation album
that has been put together by Japanese label 7e.p. 7e.p. will be donating all
proceeds from the album to the victims of the recent Tōhoku earthquake
and tsunami.

The title, 'Resume', which implies recovering and persevering, was the idea of 'Sweet Dreams' publisher Norio Fukuda. The cover artwork was provided by renowned Olympia, WA. artist Nikki McClure. Moreover, Masaki Tada, who has worked on albums by moools and many other 7e.p. albums, offered his mastering expertise.

The compilation will be part 1 of a 3 album set, that will include a
total of 45 tracks from 43 artists hailing from America, Canada, Australia,
the U.K., the Netherlands and Japan.

Volume 1 can now be pre-ordered for an April 11 release through iTunes for
the low price of $6.99. Other artists assosciated with Modest Mouse include
Wolf Parade and Figg (Robin Peringer).

The Bridge School News Network uploaded this video interview yesterday, taken at last year's Bridge School Benefit in October.

Hear Isaac, Eric, Jeremiah and Tom discuss some of their hobbies/down time activities and how, by my calculations, we should be getting a new album around the end of April (doubtful, but please prove me wrong).

Earlier this morning however they uploaded what appears to be a 15 and a half minute track from that upcoming release, simply entitled "Promise". Which at that length, may just be the entire single. Stream the track below. (Disclaimer: Those looking for new Modest Mouse, this is going to be vastly different.)

imputor? also announced this weekend, that the 2008 World Gang release, Drums, will see a further repressing of 200 copies.

With Modest Mouse news being slow at the moment (i.e. non existent) and Jeremiah
Green's World Gang releasing a new single in about a month, we thought it time
to bring Jeremiah's side project list up to date.

The old site criminally neglected Jeremiah's body of work, focusing mainly
on his projects with Red Stars Theory, Satisfact and Vells. We've done our
best to try and add every single thing that he's worked on over the past 15-20
years, but with so much stuff out there, it's entirely possible we've
missed something (For now they are still unfortunately missing 99% of the lyrics).
If we have,
let us know.

The interesting part about all his work, are the familiar names that keep
appearing. So many seem to pop up on different projects, and even spill
over to Modest Mouse at time. Jeremiah seems to have really established a kind
of musical collective up in the Seattle Area, one where everyone seems only
too happy to
contribute to each other's projects.

So here is a brief attempt at trying to document that non-Modest-Mouse-related
career that is Jeremiah Green's:

Peeved: Supposedly Jeremiah's first band, formed around 1992 with Tonie
Palmasani, Jeff McCollough and Jason Talley. They would put out one album
called Burden Of The Tiger (of which we can find little other info). Tonie,
Jason and Jeremiah would go on to form Red Stars Theory with James Bertram
(Lync, Built To Spill, 764-HERO).

Red Stars Theory: One of his longer projects, Jeremiah would drum on all
seven of their releases, even providing a bit of guitar and vocals on one
or two songs. They released a steady stream of work from 1995 to 2000, but
have largely become defunct due to Jeremiah's hectic touring schedule with
Modest Mouse. They would however, contribute a new song to Suicide Squeeze's
10 year anniversary compilation, Slaying Since 1996, in 2006.

Satisfact: Label mates with Modest Mouse at the time of their first release,
they would put out one album on UP Records, before releasing an EP and second
album on K Records. Jeremiah would not be involved in their last album, The
Third Meeting At The Third Counter and would be replaced by Dave Schneider (Lync,
Love As Laughter).

Membranaphonics: Monitor Records would do their best to showcase different
drummers on this 2001 compilation. Jeremiah would contribute a solo untitled
track. Other drummers included Brendan
Canty (Fugazi) and Simone Pace (Blonde Redhead).

Vells: Reportedly formed when Jeremiah quit Modest Mouse in 2003, he would
be joined by Tristan Marcum, Mary Thinnes and Adam McCollom. To date they
have released two albums, an EP (featuring artwork by Kevin Willis, who would
later direct the music video for Satellite Skin) and a single,
with their last release being in late 2007.

Plastiq Phantom: With Vells now on the imputor? label, Jeremiah would become
more involved with one of the label's founders, Darren Weiner (Plastiq Phantom, Psychic
Emperor, World Gang, backing vocals on Perpetual Motion Machine). Jeremiah
would drum on Plastic Phantom's self titled album (artwork by
Nando Costa, who would later direct the video for The Whale Song) and also
get a song onto the Moog documentary's soundtrack.

Psychic Emperor: Darren Weiner would join Jeremiah, and Vells band mates
Tristan Marcum and Mary Thinnes, to put out a self titled album in 2004.
James Bertram would play bass on a few tracks. Jeremiah has not been involved
in this project since their first album though, and it would seem that Psychic
Emperor has become more a project for Darren and Tristan.

Graig Markel / The Animals At Night: In 2007 Jeremiah would guest
on fellow Plastiq Phantom collaborator, Graig Markel's, solo album. The following
year he would drum on one track of Graig's new band The Animals At Night.
Both albums would feature tracks recorded in Jeremiah's basement.

World Gang: Teaming up once again with Darren Weiner, the two would release
long ambient improvisational pieces in extremely limited quantities through
imputor?. Their latest release, entitled Promise The Mixtape, is due out
on February 14.

For more information on the above mentioned releases and projects, please
explore Jeremiah Green's pages in the Discography section.

An article in the latest Rolling Stone magazine reveals lots of details regarding the planning of Heath Ledger's King Rat video. Isaac talks about his meetings with Ledger and the additional work that Terry Gilliam provided. He also talks about his last encounter with Ledger during a brake from shooting The Dark Knight.

Towards the end of the article, Isaac also talks about his work with the Shins' James Mercer on the 180 Degrees South documentary. It then goes on to mention that:

And the follow-up to 2007's We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank should be finished in the next six months, with the band road-testing some of the material on its current tour. "It'll take some effort," Brock says. "But that will make it more fun."

Now Modest Mouse has never been one to stick to any kind of release timeline, their albums have always been delayed, but as of today no new material has been performed on the current tour so far. Hopefully things will change before the tour is over and then this quote will make more sense.

Some people over at ModMouse.com have been able to talk to band members after some of the shows and have learned things that seem to support this. In Montreal Eric stated that the they are planning on working on a new album once this tour is over, that they are planning an east coast tour and that he doesn't think Johnny Marr will be returning.

The release date for the new album from Jeremiah's side project, the Vells, has been pushed back one week. "Integretron" will now be released September 18th. The album is still being released track by track for free from imputor?'s website.

Jeremiah Green's side project, the Vells, have a new album coming out September 11th entitled "Integretron." Jeremiah is credited as performing drums, guitar and vocals on the new album and word has it, that this will be his last album with the group. The album is being released by imputor?, who are currently releasing a new track each day for download via their web site, making the entire album free for download for a limited time. Currently, the first 3 tracks of the album are available. [Link]